I think he does, there's so much uncertainty, I think he has to let everyone know he either is the coach, or he's gonna be replaced here at the bye..I say that because having a bye with this much uncertainty, cannot be a good thing?..whatta ya'll think, statement or business as usual?
The statement will come after the season. It might be inevitable for Sparano to either be fired or step down voluntarily during the year...but to me the statement will be when the entire front office is cleaned out, not just Sparano. The more the Dolphins lose, the less Jeff Ireland will be able to escape blame for this. The newest thing that cropped up today is...what if Matt Moore would have gotten hurt? Who would have been our emergency QB? I know it's become chic in the NFL nowadays to only have 2 QBs on roster, but does that mean it was justifiable for the Miami Dolphins to have only 2 QBs on roster this year? Know your system. Know your team. We all could see right away that in this system, with this OL, and with the style that our QBs were coached to play, Chad Henne was getting HIT...a lot. We saw that. I'm not the only one that saw that, we all did. I just quantified it. So Chad Henne goes down at the start of that game, what if Matt Moore takes a bad hit? Who goes in? Charles Clay? We haven't seen the end of Henne's injuries this season, and I'm just wondering what happens from here on. The 3rd stringer is a practice squad QB that went UDFA. That seems normal enough. But should you be doing that if you're running a spread behind a bad OL, to where your QBs are getting murdered? Chad Henne wasn't the only one that took hits. Matt Moore took hits too. It's just an example of the kind of thing you need to be on top of if you're a GM.
Two possibilities. 1. Ireland did whatever he could to set Sparano up to fail. 2. Negligence. I say the latter, but the former has some intriguing possibilities...
I've got to think with this bye Steve, and the outcry from the fanbase, he's at least got to say something to settle them and not let the hatred build thru uncertainty?
The only thing, IMO, that the fans want to hear is Ross saying that TS has been let go. Fans don't want to hear anything else.
This fan doesn't. This fan wants to hear that Jeff Ireland has been fired and that candidates from the Packers, Steelers, Ravens, and Eagles front offices are scheduled for immediate interviews. I'd even accept Carl Peterson as interim GM to serve out the year and conduct the interviews.
Makes no sense. You give him 2 weeks to fix something that he can't fix. Ross gives him 2 weeks to let this team have his fate hang over their heads. Put the f'er out of his misery. Give this team 2 weeks to prepare for the Jets with the mindset that this is who, whoever the interim coach is, they are playing for and that is who will be there through week 17. You either let him go now or you keep him all season. It makes no sense to let him coach through the bye week and have him be a "week to week" coach.
I have heard that it may have been a separated shoulder but I don't know for sure. I think he has gonna have testing done tomorrow but in his press conference he said he wants to play through it. Say what you want about Henne, but he is one tough/determined kid. I bet he would have went back into the game if they would have let him.
I just don't know how Sparano is gonna get a team to rally during the bye when they know he's gonna get axed...Their not playing like they want to save his job.
Either two things are going to happen. They're going to come out with a lot of fire and intensity beating the Jets to save Sparano's job. Then that carries over to a 7-8 wins season. Or they're going to come out flat losing by two or more touchdowns. Then we probably win between 3-4 games. I honestly have a gut feeling it'll be the latter... I'm starting to think we are one of the biggest underachievers in the league right now.
You could see the offense get constricted when Moore was in..I hope the dude comes back and gets a win against the jets..coming back from a broken shoulder to beat the jets?...lol...He might win some folks then and only then... If they even care,Its actually this teams last hope, Henne that is.
I don't want Sparano fired. I don't want to change the dynamic. Last year the team proved that it will not play for Tony Sparano, or for pride. They're showing that again. They will keep losing as long as Tony Sparano is leading them. I'd rather they lose than they win. No more papering over the huge cracks in this team. Bust it wide open, fire the coach and general manager, hire someone to re-make the organization from top to bottom, and use Andrew Luck as the carrot that lures the best possible GM/HC choices to Miami.
Is it really underachieving, or is this team just showing its true colors of how bad they really are? I'll give it the benefit of the doubt for now as I thought they'd be 1-3 at this point anyway. Losing to the Pats, Texans, and Chargers was expected. The Browns was not, but then again, I wasn't really surprised.
Not going to turn your thread into a Henne thread, but I don't see Henne gaining any fan support no matter what he does. As far as the Irish, getting rid of him right now won't make a huge difference on gamedays. That's why I mentioned getting rid of TS might be the only thing fans really want to hear.
Its very very hard to unite a team here..so many distractions, so much offseason drama, even the ''win the crowd'' tool did nothing..He {sparano} couldn't get them on the same page, to care enough about their pride...Sometimes I wonder if this team despises Irish so much their playing with spite..
but that cannot be Ross's thought process.. Whats the best thing to do for our team??..Come out and say Sparano and Irish will be the coach and GM for the rest of the season, and let them hang himself, or not, or make the change now because the first option is just wrong on so many levels, 1 being decisions for the future of the team could be comprimised??
The right decision is to let them finish out the season. It's BETTER for Stephen Ross to send a message to any/all prospective Head Coaches, General Managers that may be thinking of applying for the Miami job....a message that says, "I'm a man of my word. If I say I'm giving you another chance, I'm giving you another chance." I think that's more important than a message he could send that temporarily results in a few more wins (and worse draft position) just because it gets a rise out of the players. Don't try and paper over a huge chasm.
Let's be real...most Dolphins fans are apathetic right now. The games will be blacked out unless they buy up tickets, which they won't do anymore. What are the 50,000 fans going to start a chant asking Sparano to be fired? Doesn't matter. Most won't anyway. Let them stay until January, then fire them all the day after the week 17 Jets game or ASAP. Then we can wipe Parcells and the Chokeboys leftovers out of this franchise. The prize for the worst record is #1 pick (and #33 pick!) aka Andrew Luck. I don't want an interim coach who might get 4 cheap wins to ruin that.
I agree with DJ that the most important thing Stephen Ross can do is send a message. That message doesn't need to go out to the Miami players. Those players are going to get that message in the form of pink slips, eventually. This season is DONE. Don't try and paper over huge gaping chasms with a few cheap wins built of drastic moves meant to get a meaningless 'rise' out of the players. You WANT to know which players play week in and week out for pride, rather than a pay check. It's important to determine those guys. No, the message Stephen Ross needs to send is to PROSPECTIVE Head Coaches and PROSPECTIVE General Managers, guys who might be thinking of tossing their names in the ring to try and take over this team. Stephen Ross has to send a message of INTEGRITY to those people. He has to send them a message that says, "If I say I'm giving you another chance, I'm giving you another chance. I am not a fickle owner." If he fires Tony Sparano after only 4 games of the 2011 season, after giving him a contract extension during the off season, what message does that send to guys that you want to come to Miami and be excited about coming here? What message does it send to the likes of Bill Cowher, Jeff Fisher or Jon Gruden? Stephen Ross already ****ed up once. He stuck his toe in the water on the Harbaugh thing where he should have gone full speed ahead. Either full speed ahead retaining Tony Sparano, or full speed ahead firing him and making Jim Harbaugh an offer he couldn't refuse. He didn't do that. My advice to him now would be NOT to compound that mistake by continuing to build your reputation as a fickle, feckless owner. Be CALM and CONFIDENT. Make good decisions.
Good word. In the end, I (and it sucks to say this, it really does) just want to lose enough games to be picking #1. And to that end, keeping Sparano makes the most sense. Team quit on him once and it appears to be repeating itself.
Plus I dont think those coaches (or any quality ones for that matter) would want to jump into the middle of a meaningless, losing season, and stick their name on it without any prior preparation. The best thing Ross can do IMO is show support for his current team..... or at least pretend that he's doing so.
Yup, come out and be confident about retaining him, that sounds right.... When the Owner and GM went out and made an offer to Harbaugh, thus completely undermining the leadership of their coach, I guess Sparano didn't have the makeup in him to keep the team united in the face of such actions, with such limited access during the lockout....Maybe not possible? I wish I knew the reason why Harbaugh declined the offer..at the time I thought it was about west coast preference and a superior football culture..or it could of been an ethical rejection where he declined knowing there was a mans life being undermined..Man my head is spinning.
1. We don't know if Harbaugh declined us or if we declined him. He never, to my knowledge, said that he declined us. However Ross and Ireland did say specifically that they declined him, that after meeting with him Ross told him that he should stay at Stanford. So who knows. 2. I realize you think that the turning point for the locker room happened then with that fiasco, but I guarantee it had already happened. The team was faced with a game against the Patriots in Week 17 of the 2010 season in which they were purely tasked with playing for pride, playing for their coach, playing for their system, their belief in each other and what they were trying to get done long term. The Patriots were tasked with the exact same thing. It was a meaningless game for both parties. The Dolphins players weren't just beaten, they QUIT. Re-watch that game. Go do it, if you can. Re-watch it and tell me those players had any faith in what they were doing. They didn't. It emphasizes a simple fact: the less meaningful the game in terms of trying to fight for division positioning or playoffs, etc...the worse the Dolphins have played under Sparano. And that started well before Ross made an ill-fated trip to the West Coast.
It was clear. Like him or not, Ricky was right about it. This team doesn't seem motivated. Henne does...but they're still struggling. It all has to change, but not until January. I was mad when they hired Daboll, wondering why on earth we'd take the guy from Cleveland who had an even worse offense. I then got on board, but my immediate suspicions were correct. Whatever, this regime is done come January.
I think we should keep Sparano and fire the team. These ******s are coasting through the games and setting him up.
Not saying they never did, but I don't recall Joe Robbie nor Wayne Huizenga ever addressing the media just because the team was having a bad season.
How on earth can anyone say that they would be happy to have their team finnish with the worst record in the league just to pick up the no1 draft? So you like to watch your team be humiliated? There is something seriously wrong with the Dolphins and if they do not wish to become known as joke team in the NFL something must be done immediately. If this means sacking the coach then so be it. It must be done NOW and a replacement put in charge for the Jets game, and he give us some inspiration to kick start the season. We cannot have the Jets beating us!
I sort of get that, but really do you think Gruden is going to say "wow can't believe you didn't stay with Sparano all year", I mean it is not like he would be firing him after going 2-2. Firing him now, just reaffirms his decision in the offseason, we need a change, his mistake, which is obvious to the world, is he kept Sparano as a backup plan and should have never done that. I am sure in hindsight, if he realized the media would find out, that he would have done things differently. Anyway, I see no point in keeping a lameduck coach to show others you are not fickle, when they already know that...